Saturday 14 November 2009

Aircraft Wrecks: The Walker's Guide: Historic Crash Sites on the Moors and Mountains of the British Isles

We are getting reports of inaccuracies and errors in Clark and Wotherspoon's so-called "Walkers Guide". We don't want to judge prematurely, so are investigating.

Our initial comment is this -walkers (or "bobble-hatted numpties" as Alan Clark likes to call us) don't want a guide which is a big hardback book, contains no walking routes, has only approximate (and perhaps inaccurate) coordinates, and has pages of stuff about what the flight crew had for breakfast.

Surely they want something more like the old "High Ground Wrecks", only more precise and accurate, with GPS verified 6 dp coordinates, and a few words about the circumstances of the crash.

But of course we give you that for nowt. Comments and reports on errors in the "guide" are invited.

3 comments:

Pasujoba said...

Hi Sean ,
The book is ok for finding huge wreckage pools but hopeless for the smaller stuff . I,ve lost count of the number of times i,ve failed to find anything using the GR's in that book .
Only yesterday Ian and myself trotted off up the North Pennines to visit Halifax BB310 on the 70th anniversary of its crash . Whilst there we thought we would go have a look at Hudson N7325 ....well being reasonable at navigation we stood upon the exact coordinates supplied ....confirmed by Ians sat nav ....and spent ages scouring the rocky scree all around ....not a trace of an aircraft crash site at all . I,m sure its there somewhere but its not at that grid reference in the book . Could it be some sort of conspiracy to hide the location of certain crash sites or just simply wrong GR 's. Surely the people who have bought the book like myself, bobble hat et al, actually want to find the sites ...if your gonna publish GR's you should make sure they are accurate ones and the wreckage should lie in the 100m square North and East of the 6 figure ref as is the standard way of using such references , i,ve discussed this with one of em on the internet in the past but they see nowt wrong with a search area 400m x400m instead of 100m x100m. I could not recommend the book to anyone . Whats needed is something more like Pat's books but across all the hills and mountains not just the Peak district .
Is Pat gonna do one for the trough of bowland?
all the best
paul .

Thepeakdistrictviking said...

I have used this book too, what you have to realise is that a 6 figure grid reference is the size of a football field so if looking for a small wreckage pool in a peat bog you're going to need some luck. I prefer Pat Cunninghams books with the 10 figure ref.
It is a good reference guide though to allow you to research in more detail and find more accurate references.

Sean said...

Thanks, I agree. Pat's books are the best available. Clark and Wotherspoon's is better than the far better tha Smith's High Groudn Wrecks in that is more accurate, but as someone who started out searching bogs based on HGW's dodgy GRs, I do realise how tiresome such searches can be. HGW didn't always even give 6 figures, and when it did, they were more often wrong than right.